Don’t get me wrong. I know many companies are squeezing the last dollar out of a product they pay good money for. But Microsoft publishes end of lifecycle dates years in advance so that businesses can plan. An IT professional is doing a very bad job by not looking at those schedules every once in a while and to plan accordingly. The bad thing here is, that these so-called IT professionals are in charge of their environment and now everyone underneath has to follow their speed. By the way - I could see the Microsoft rep smiling and laughing about these so-called IT professionals, too. She even did me a favor when asking the question about how fast the normal patch installation turnaround time would be. First there was silence - a little too long. You could tell that there was no plan and no tools in place to get the environment patched in a timely fashion and the respondee made something up to not look like an idiot - again, a little too late. Happy patching.

The Dwarf in a pickup truck

Colorado has a very high density of SUV type of vehicles registered and on the road. This includes pickup trucks. After running into several situations with pickup trucks either blocking traffic because of going slow (driver usually on the cell phone) or being harassed by a speeding pickup truck (driver usually on the cell phone) or seeing a pickup truck sweering left and right (driver usually on the cell phone) making it impossible to safely pass, I started paying some more attention to the drivers and what type of vehicles were used.

The first common thing I noticed - these are never small pickup trucks. No, a Ford F-150 would not do it - way too small. These are usually Ford F-250 or up type of pickup trucks. No, this is not limited to Ford only - Chevy and especially Dodge pickup trucks are involved, too. Rarely I see a Nissan or Toyota pickup truck “involved”.

The second thing in common - the drivers are small. I mean you can tell - if the driver is barely visible because he is so small, he is usually a pretty small guy. Maybe 5′ 5″ if at all. Don’t believe me? Go to Home Depot and watch the parking lot. Look out for those “unmarked” (no commercial signs) pickup trucks. Some of these guys might even be better off with a stepstool to get back into the lifted pickup truck. Short legs and lifted pickup trucks just don’t fit together that well.

The third thing in common - often these are not commercially marked trucks, but still used by contractors or handymen. You can tell by all the clipboards and paperwork on the dashboard when finally passing these idiots on the highway or when seeing their trucks parked somewhere.

And last but not least - the 4th thing in common: When you see those guys getting out of their truck and they start walking, it looks like they walk like John Wayne after a long day on the horse. Must have been a long, hard ride, eh?!

Anyway - what is it with these small guys driving the biggest pickup trucks available out there? Do you need to prove something by buying the biggest car the smaller you are? And what is it that you need to block the highway all the time when talking on the phone? Why don’t you go onto the left lane and let other’s actually drive while you discuss your stuff on the phone? You look like a dwarf in a pickup truck.